Do you have a time blocked in your calendar for reading technical books? Do you have time blocked in your calendar for journaling and reflection? If not, that might be the first step to take to ensure consistent dedication to the two highest ROI activities. Reading Reading should occupy most of the free time. Reading … Read more
Compounding effect and ROI (return on investment) The best bet you can make in investing is to take advantage of the compound effect, which essentially means, how can I stay consistent and in the game for a long time? Whatever can give us consistency, even in small/modest amounts, will be massive after compounding occurs. And … Read more
the 2-minute rule Barriers to productivity Atomic Habits (my affiliate link) is probably the best book ever written on productivity. James Clear goes into detail on what is essentially the biggest problem with habits and behavioral change: Identity. The best way to change our identity is to “vote” with behavior. So if there is a … Read more
I recently came across a very interesting concept called NICE goals from Ali Abdal in his new book Feel good productivity (my affiliate link), and it embodies a proven principle called the 2-minute rule. I was not able to place the 2-minute rule into a framework for goal setting until now. Let’s break NICE goals … Read more
Reflection How often do we stop and reflect on what is going on in our lives? If we don’t reflect upon recent experiences it is difficult to make changes, we are just running on the autopilot mode. Taking just a couple of minutes to reflect on recurring themes, issues, and emotions from recent days can … Read more
Indicators vs facts Emotions are just indicators, and they are designed to protect us in a split-second reaction. But left unchecked, we can easily latch on to them and treat them as facts. Emotions are a way for our subconscious mind to tell us that something is a potential threat to us, and it’s our … Read more
It’s easy to think about constraints as something negative, when in fact it might unlock a whole new level of productivity. But not just productivity, for any behavior to be healthy we need to establish constraints. Keep good things good All good things in life require proper constraints ex: work, people, exercise. It is very … Read more
We are built to thrive on defaults What are defaults, and why are so accustomed to them? Defaults are just defaults, more commonly known as “autopilot”. The big reason why we are running most of the time on the autopilot is efficiency, our brains are masters at optimizing energy consumption and defaults are a huge … Read more
Courage We might associate courage with war and some extreme circumstances but actually, we need courage daily to counteract the power of fear. Fear is a very useful tool, but left unchecked can wreak havoc in our lives. I would argue that the main thing we need to progress and push ourselves forward is courage. … Read more
We don’t need articles on how to get a promotion at work, we need articles on how to get promotions at life Work is work Work will always be work, no matter how much we put effort into it, companies will keep us as long as we are useful, when we are not we will … Read more